The woman who threatens one of the most successful public health programmes ever – newborn screening. And why she has a point. This is a really important piece by Mary Carmichael that successfully navigates a very complicated issue. (Nature News is now under a registration wall. I say this unreservedly: you should register. It’s no price to pay for one of the most consistently excellent sources of science news anywhere. Proper news, not rehashed press releases or inaccurate fluff.)

A beautiful post from Alice Bell on Google Science Fair – come for the great stories about how the kids thought up their (bloody impressive) projects, and stay for the thought-provoking discussion on how scientists can learn from them.

“Participants read passages from either a book about wizards (from the Harry Potter series) or a book about vampires (from the Twilight series)… Participants who read about wizards psychologically became wizards, whereas those who read about vampires psychologically became vampires…”

Before I get far, I’d like to clear up the issue of broken links once and for all.

I often point out some of the broken links I find, either via the comments space or via Twitter, on the understanding that I’m helping (which I’m happy to do my share of). But I’ve noticed that more often than not, broken links don’t get fixed even after they’re pointed out. Which makes me wonder what I’ve misunderstood. So please clarify: do you want readers to help identify broken links, and do you have preferences as to how this is done?

Number one in this article is “on why I love the piece” in the first paragraph. It’s a Google Plus URL glued to a Delicious URL, but the hybrid is not a viable life form.

It is this simple: the links list is created and put up on a weekend. It may shock people to hear this, but I do other things on weekends besides tend to the blog, and sometimes (no, really, sit down before you read this) people send me messages and emails that I then forget about.

So by all means, point out broken links, and thanks for taking the time to do that, but if I don’t get round to fixing them, here’s what you should do.

Lynas has posted an update. The book is available again on Amazon, and he no longer believes there was any censorship involved. Apparently some people thought they had purchased a hardback and it turned out to be a paperback; enough complained that the book was “not as described” that Amazon’s automated processes kicked in and pulled the book until the situation could be investigated by human beans.

The wizards/vampires story reminds me of people I’ve known in churches who, if the proceedings require someone to act the part of the devil, will pray for that person as though they stand in need of special protection.